


The Taste of Lacre

by frith_in_thorns



Series: Free of Surface Ties [11]
Category: Fallen London | Echo Bazaar, White Collar
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Lacre, Poison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-02
Updated: 2014-01-02
Packaged: 2018-01-07 04:49:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1115715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frith_in_thorns/pseuds/frith_in_thorns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not a good idea to stay out in the lacre for too long. (More of the White Collar characters in Fallen London.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Taste of Lacre

**Author's Note:**

> Direct sequel to [An Unusual Pail of So-Called Snow](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1108942), by Sholio. Because the lacre-snow is _not_ safe.

Neal digs down with the spade, and heaves away another load of not-quite-snow. His muscles are burning by now, and he's for a while been regretting offering to clear the path to June's handsome townhouse. But having made that promise he can't very well renege on it, especially as June is currently out visiting with the Duchess and her cats. He doesn't want her to come home to find he's abandoned a job halfway through.

Still, the morning of shovelling the Neath-snow is taking its toll. And around June's house the lacre lies especially thick, pressing at her walls and nestling up against the threshold. He hasn't seen this much anywhere else in London. And the lacre is pure; just the kind that several factions are _most_ interested in acquiring.

When he pauses to catch his breath, leaning on the spade handle, he catches a glimpse of the Bifurcated Owl peering out of one of June's windows and gives it a cheery wave. It doesn't look impressed, but then it rarely is unless you've brought it a tasty handful of _really good_ secrets. It loves Mozzie, who spoils it appallingly.

He's thinking of secrets as he turns back to the work. The lacre falls in patterns which are almost sigils if you squint, blurred just beyond recognition.

His eyes are beginning to tear up now, the cold filming them with water as it steals his breath again, and he slows. Stealing… The lacre is mesmerising, and he can't look away. 

He falls slowly. Until he hits the path he doesn't even realise how the strength's been sapped from him, so gradually he didn't notice. But it doesn't seem to matter much, as the patterns formed by the not-snow stir at his breath. The symbols shift as he blinks; supple as wax, drifts of lacre rolling slowly like thunderclouds across the ground and piling softly against his body. The lacre remembers, if he can only learn to read it. There is a storm and a word in its frozen core.

Lacre clings to his eyelashes, white as rime. Flakes of it spin in his bleary sight like frost-moths dancing to a candle flame.

Beneath the whisper of the wind, there are voices, faint and unimportant. "Neal?"

Ghostly hands touch him, tap his face. "Neal! Can you hear me?"

"Neal? Sweetie, please talk to us."

The words are barely in focus.

"We should get him inside, into the warmth."

"June, can you help me with him?"

Neal doesn't resist the hands which lift him from the lacre and carry him out of the world of white and grey and into dimness. He's hollow and keening inside, and can't think of moving.

"Is he conscious?" El's worried voice asks, as he's laid on something soft.

Peter leans into the slice of the room that Neal can see. "I don't know. Neal?"

"Here," June says. "Blankets."

Neal is limp and unresisting as June and Peter strip damp clothing off him and bundle him up in the blankets, lying him back down on the sofa with a cushion under his head. The visions in his mind are more real than what he sees through his eyes; swirling mists of white and grey, parting like veils to give brief and half-remembered glimpses of distant shores.

Without closing his eyes, he dreams. Massive stone _things_ stirring far below them, deep in the dark. Bright mirrors growing from the ground like trees. A lingering light.

"What if he doesn't come out of it?" Peter asks, in a low voice.

"He will," June says. She strokes his hair gently. "You'll come back to us, won't you, Neal?"

"I should have stopped him from messing around with the lacre," Peter says. "I _knew_ no good would come of it. I should have made him stop when I found he'd done our path."

"You're not responsible for what Neal decides to do," El says. El who looks North when the false-stars are alight and the thunder is growling far away.

Peter will not be comforted. "Heaven knows how much of that stuff he ended up breathing in. Have you heard what happened when someone fed some to an L.B.?"

The urchin-gangs have rhymes about the lacre. And the Masters, and the sigils, and about what crawls behind the glass.

"Neal?" Peter says, his voice still low. A gentle hand tilts Neal's face towards him. Peter's care-burdened brown eyes are more full of worry than ever.

"We'll try this," June announces. Her steps are careful. She's carrying something.

"Are you sure?" El asks.

"Candles to light the way. You've all heard it."

Neal shivers. It runs all through him, completely beyond his control.

The strike of a match and the brief stink of sulphur. The crackle as the wax on the wick catches.

Mourning candles burn bright and dark at once. Neal's eyes cannot see them but he is aware of each point of flame, and he shivers again. _Here comes a candle to steal you from bed…_

He shivers, and then he's suddenly wracked with shudders, Peter's hands clenching tight and fearful on his shoulders. "Neal! Look at me!"

"Peter," Neal chokes, and then his eyes finally close.

But June's stroking his hair, calling his name, and he manages to resist, forcing his eyes back open from the dragging dark and trying to sit up. He doesn't manage it, but he at least turns his head as the candles flicker, the flames shrinking into streams of pale smoke.

"Neal?" Peter says, again.

"I'm okay," Neal whispers. His words are like smoke themselves, and there's a dull hurt through his chest.

"You're not," El says. When he looks at her she has her lips pressed fiercely together, determinedly holding back tears. "What happened?"

"I saw things," Neal whispers to her. But the visions are already melting away, banished by candlelight and beating hearts. "Memories…"

Peter frowns, worriedly, and shakes his head. "If they came from the lacre, they're best forgotten."

But Neal looks to El, and to June, and recognises there the disagreement they won't voice. There are some things that will not let themselves be lost for long. He shivers again, and Peter rubs a warm hand comfortingly up and down his arm. Peter will keep all harm away, if he can.

If he can.


End file.
